White Room
by tiptremble
Summary: Trapped and alone, Stamets rifles through dream, memory and reality. Rated for violence - let me know if you think I have the rating right!
1. Chapter 1

**I have a bad habit of starting stories I'm really excited about and then getting distracted or too busy, so I'm not getting my hopes up on finishing this - the story is pretty ambitious! But I hope you get something out of these two chapters.**

* * *

Straight ahead, full speed, veering slightly. Bursts of colour to light the way. Six hours forward, a lifetime to the east, branch, branch, a city, a nebula, an ocean, branch again, deaths, gifts, atoms bonding, stars crumbling, and on, and on, branch after branch, time and life, held at once like spun sugar, so complex, so fragile.

A lone voyager is on its path, vessel and passenger all at once, following inexorably. They watch themselves. They felt once that they ruled this road, humbled but not bowed by its reach. Now they are shaped to others' ends, and can't grip on to its tugs, pulls and eddies no matter how tantalisingly and insistently they call. So they simply go on, an instrument, inert.

There's something seductive in it, this stripping away of the self. A near irresistible beckoning to let go. But something catches. Slipping through the echoes. Barely detectable, its translucence an invitation to pay attention, to remain, to remember.

Somewhere, singing on a distant branch…

 _Vivo sola, soletta_  
 _là in una bianca cameretta_  
 _guardo sui tetti e in cielo_  
 _ma quando vien lo sgelo_  
 _il primo sole è mio_  
 _il primo bacio dell'aprile è mio!_

He'd hated the sound of that once, he was sure. Now if only, if only he could follow.

* * *

Stamets snapped back to darkness, words ricocheting in his head,

 _Germoglia in un vaso una rosa..._  
 _Foglia a foglia la spio!_

Around him figures were darting at inestimable speed, like video in fast forward. He squinted, strained through murk and shocked wakefulness, but whether these were ghosts of a different place or really here, his mind just too sluggish to keep up, he couldn't tell what they were. They slowed to a normal pace, their movements more ascertainable, but as they did they faded from view, until he was left alone and unglued.

He tried to regain some sense of where he was. His neck was stiff, horribly stiff. What did that mean? He must have been asleep before the jump, head slumped forward. Why would he be…?

And there it was. He looked down, his forearms on display in front of him, bare, strapped down under metal, implants pierced through. His hands throbbed, God, how hadn't he noticed. It was dizzying. How many fingers were they up to now? Two on the right, three on the left. He could see them faintly, splayed out at wrong angles.

Pain, he was suddenly overcome from every direction. He rotated his neck to iron out the kinks, shifted fruitlessly against his bonds to try and shake out the aches accumulated in every joint from being forced to sit for too long. How long? He had no way to know. His left hand jerked involuntarily and he cried out. "Please…" he choked, to no one. Tilly was here once, he was sure of it. Maybe she'll be back soon. Where did she get to? He tried to recall and felt a momentary disquiet, snowballing into nausea. No, no, go somewhere else. He returned to the only place he could, the pain. Why wouldn't it stop? There had to be a way. He squirmed again, kicked his feet against the ground. Twisted, pulled. Somewhere far away he knew he looked absurd, he hated making a spectacle of himself, but he had to make it stop, just stop. Stop! But nothing worked. A growl transformed into a shout, and then he was shouting wordlessly on and on, raging into the shadows.

Then it wasn't dark anymore. A beam of light struck him and he wrenched his head away, the light burning his eyes. He felt a presence at his side before something gripped his hair and forced his head around. With effort he kept his eyes open and saw a silhouetted figure looming over him, facial ridges stark against the light.

"Human, just because I cannot kill you does not mean there is not far more damage to be done."

It was spoken so calmly, Stamets had barely time to take in the words before the Klingon took his twisted right hand in his and squeezed. He certainly had no time to hold in the scream that burst forth.

"I did not choose this station. I do not want this station. There is no glory in guarding your pitiful carcass all night."

The klingon squeezed more tightly. Stamets lost all sense for a moment, coming back to the room with his cheek burning, head spinning. He tasted blood. He thought fuzzily about whether he would recognise himself in a mirror these days.

"I have no appetite for listening to your incessant wailing, but if I cannot stop it, be assured I will give you a reason for it. Do you understand?"

Stamets couldn't focus. What did he just say? Was he supposed to answer?

The Klingon squeezed again.

"Do you understand?"

Understand? Understand what? He coughed out a yes anyway. He said yes again, and again for good measure. Why won't he let go?

"Good. Yet it seems humans are too stupid to understand the simplest instructions without endless repetition. Perhaps this time will help you finally grasp my words."

He heard the snap before he felt it, but after that all sight, all sound was shut off. His mouth was open, he knew that, he knew there was no air left in his lungs. When blurred vision returned, through gasps and convulsions he saw the Klingon walking away, back to the light. And then there was no light. Alone, again. Always alone. He tried to curl into himself, but the restraints kept him stubbornly upright. If only he could cradle his hand, maybe there would be some relief. It was held less than a foot away. It might as well be miles. Stabs shot from his fingers up through his arm. Another scream threatened. Hold it. You have to hold it.

Three on the left, three on the right. Stamets hissed a laugh. Well, that's one way to mark time.

Mercy came soon, as it always did, a blanket descending rapidly onto his mind. A jump was coming. He closed his eyes, heaving in oxygen, waiting for the warm embrace of the mycelial network, oblivion, the obliteration of self, sense, time. And for the music. He waited for the music.

And loyally, lovingly, it came.

 _Quando men vo soletta per la via,_  
 _La gente sosta e mira..._


	2. Chapter 2

Stamets had a game he played with himself. He called it Ten out of Ten. It went like this: Think back to a time in your past when you felt pain and, armed with your newfound understanding of pain's limitlessness, rate it out of ten. It was a riot.

Back at Starfleet Academy someone once dropped a weight on his foot - on purpose, he suspected, given the indifference of the apology. It broke his foot. He'd yelled, sworn, hurled abuse at anyone standing near enough to catch his eye. He wasn't interested in aping that famed Starfleet forbearance, devotion to its highest ideals at the expense of any personal comfort. He didn't even want to be here! Put him in a lab and he'd stay awake for days, hunch over his specimens as the burning between his shoulder blades intensified, gulp down coffee until he was cross-eyed, but ask him to run laps without complaining?! You must be joking. He'd jump through the hoops that would keep him his funding, his research team, but he wouldn't skip merrily along to Starfleet's tune at the same time.

There was a medical trainee in the gym at the time, he forgot her name. In his memories she had the face now of Cadet Tilly, the same tremouring hesitance. She'd probed his foot with her fingers and he'd howled. "Um, what would you say, um, how bad, could you rate the pain, um, rate it out of ten?"

"Ten, you idiot, it's ten! Now stop torturing me and get me to a professional who knows what they're doing."

He mulled it over for a minute. Today he'd give it a four.

Torture! He'd called that torture. He laughed as Tilly's startled, uncertain eyes stared down at him. "Something the matter, Cadet?" No, who was he talking to? This was a memory, she wasn't here. He laughed again. He was drifting. What happened then? There was a sickbay, just like the one on Discovery, identikit Starfleet, but with huge windows looking out on sports fields. He'd glared at the athletes below, gritted his teeth, swore again as the medics used their blinking gizmos to fuse his bones back together. And Hugh had held his hand, kissed the tips of his fingers, quietly smiled at the creativity of his epithets.

Wait, Hugh couldn't have been there. He was on Bajor at the time. Wasn't he? Yet now Hugh was the one with the gizmos, holding his foot gently, telling him it would be over soon, silencing his complaints with a look. But that didn't happen either, none of it happened. They were in a bedroom now, and Hugh was standing, telling him to watch where he put his foot next time, again silencing his protestations, now with a kiss. His lips were soft, a faint scrape of bristle. I love you Paul. I'm just asking you to be careful.

It didn't happen that way, did it? It couldn't have. He wasn't there. But maybe in another life, another world…

Stamets tried to pierce the fog, separate the real, but images and sensations only bore more heavily down on him, dragging the thread of his own story out of his grip. Oh, well. Another life then, another world. He gave in, let the flood of other men's memories overtake him. There were worse illusions to be lost in, and he was so tired. He closed his eyes.


End file.
